A Letter to My 20-Something Self, and Anyone Else Trapped in Financial Victim Mode...

Dear younger me,

I'm here again, writing this from my mid-30s, finally learning what it means to be the author of my own money story instead of its victim. I wish I could reach back through time and shake you awake from the financial programming that's about to cost you a decade of your life.

Remember when I wrote to you about [how financial literacy is gatekept by design]?

How growing up in poverty meant that throughout your upbringing, development, and early adulthood, all you knew was how to hustle? Because that's what abuelo did, what Mom did, what your older siblings did as soon as they turned 18—because that was survival.

But the wealth planning? The smart investing and choices? Nowhere to be found.

You'll feel stupid for starting this journey in your 30s.

Or maybe—and this is what I hope you'll realize sooner than I did—you're simply a byproduct who is breaking her programming.

The Victim Story You're About to Tell Yourself

I know what's coming for you. The moments when you'll feel completely powerless around money. When a victim mindset will feel like the only truth you know.

It's going to happen every time you lock yourself into a big, giant loan. That expensive BMW lease because you "deserved" comfort during your dreaded LA commute. The Tesla lease three months before paying off your Prius because you "needed" your dream EV car. They'll call it "living beyond your means," but what they won't tell you is how those financial systems are designed to keep you trapped.

You're going to find yourself nickel and diming to see how you'll financially survive the week. This weekly financial survival? You’re good at this. This feels familiar, dare I say, comfortable. You'll have that friend who says she doesn't have a budget, she just uses her credit cards. This behavior will fascinate you—because you'll be doing the same thing.

You'll fall under the fake belief that credit cards mean you have money.

Let me tell you something that will blow your mind: that's not stupidity. That's systemic programming.

Wells Fargo is going to do something that will make you feel both grateful and idiotic. After you pay down a good amount of debt, they'll increase your credit limit. Your reaction? "Oh look, I have more money!"

That is not a coincidence. That is system design.

They know precisely what they're doing. They know that when you don't have money, credit cards feel like money. They know you'll take that increased limit as permission to spend, not as a trap to avoid.

The predatory relationship of financial systems isn't your imagination—it's their business model.

I feel a lot of shame around falling for this, even now. But I'm writing this to give you the warning I wish we had, and to help us both overcome the programming slowly.

At 32, your therapist is going to ask you something that will crack open your victim story:

Sit with that question. Really sit with it.

Because here's what you'll discover: you have choices. Daily choices. Every single day.

But right now, you can't see them because the victim story is so loud, so familiar, so comfortable in its misery that it drowns out your agency.

You'll spend years telling yourself:

"I'm a failure."

"I can’t get out of this."

"I'm just bad with money."

These aren't facts. They're stories. Stories that keep you small, stories that keep you stuck, stories that keep you from facing the truth:

I see you about to make those financial decisions from a place of sheer unhappiness. The car leases won't be about transportation—they'll be about trying to buy your way out of misery.

Stop.

Listen to me: Money cannot heal the wound you're trying to fix.

That job that's making you so unhappy, you think a new car might help?

Leave.

That toxic relationship with overwork because you finally hit six figures and feel like you need to stay with the "toxic job boyfriend" to get out of debt?

It's a trap.

You're creating self-imposed barriers that you're unconsciously designing to keep yourself stuck.

The car won't fix the depression.

The salary won't heal the loss of identity.

The credit limit won't create the security you're desperately seeking.

Here's what I want you to understand about responsibility versus self-blame:

Self-blame sounds like:

"I fucked up."

"I shouldn't have done that."

"Why do I keep doing this to myself?"

"Why am I in the misery business?"

Responsibility sounds like:

Responsibility means doing the tedious work. Listing out all the subscriptions. Noticing that you've been paying for the same streaming service for two different accounts. Discovering you've been paying $50 for Coursera for one class, keeping the subscription because you "might want to learn," but a year later, realizing it was just money down the drain, and you didn’t even finish the one class.

It's calling yourself out for signing up for a 3-month Pilates membership so classes are "cheaper," but only going three times—when paying for single classes would have actually been cheaper.

It's noticing this behavior and saying "ya basta."

Not "I'm terrible." Not "I'm stupid." Just: "Enough."

The Victim-to-Author Shift

Here's what distinguishing between victimhood and authorship looks like:

Victim mode blames everything external and feels powerless to change anything.

Author mode acknowledges both systemic barriers AND personal agency.

When Wells Fargo increases your credit limit after you pay down debt, you can recognize both truths:

1. This is a predatory system design meant to trap you

2. You have the choice not to use that increased limit

   
   

When you're struggling financially despite working full-time, you can hold both truths:

1. Wages haven't kept up with the cost of living (systemic)

2. You can examine your spending patterns and make adjustments (personal agency)

   
   

The goal isn't to blame yourself for systemic problems. The goal is to identify where you actually have choice within broken systems.

None of this will be easy. After all, breaking ingrained habits is no simple feat. But know that you can and will build new habits.

You're going to do EMDR therapy, and it's going to change your life. I wish you would start at 25. I wonder what your life would look like 10 years from now if you had done that early on.

The therapy will help you understand that feeling of being squeezed, choked, poor, broke, and not wanting to feel that anymore. It will motivate you to get serious about weekly no-spends, budgeting, sticking to it, and tracking your money monthly, sometimes weekly, to get out of that cycle.

You'll face incredible resistance. That self-critical voice that tells you you're a horrible, dumb person? It's going to fight you every step of the way.

Your relationship with money will still be strained, even now as I write this. You'll still be doing the work. But the difference is that you'll be doing it as the author of your story, not its victim.

I also want to tell you about what agency actually looks like.

Agency isn't perfection. It's not never making another financial mistake.

Agency is love.

Agency is awareness.

Agency is the deep knowing that you deserve more.

You deserve financial peace.

You deserve to sleep without money anxiety.

You deserve to break the cycle.

Agency looks like:

Opening your eyes instead of looking away.

Facing the music instead of avoiding it.

Getting over your stubbornness about "deserving" things that keep you broke.

Recognizing that being young and free doesn't mean making dumb financial choices.

Agency means understanding that every time you felt trapped, every time you felt like you had no choice, there was another option. It might not have been easy. It might not have been comfortable. But it existed.

You Can Be the Author of Your Money Story

Here's what I need you to understand:

Yes, the system is designed to keep you trapped.

Yes, you grew up without financial education.

Yes, the cards are stacked against you.

And, you still have choices.

Every day, you choose who you want to be with money.

Every financial decision is a chance to write a different story.

You can be the one who breaks the programming.

You can be the one who faces the music.

You can be the one who says "ya basta" to the victim story and picks up the pen.

The victim story feels safer because it requires nothing of you.

The author story is scarier because it demands everything.

But here's what the author's story gives you that the victim's story never can: 

The possibility of a different ending.

The plot twist isn't that you'll never struggle with money again. It's not that you'll become wealthy overnight or that all your financial problems will disappear.

The plot twist is realizing you were never powerless.

You were programmed. You were manipulated. You were set up to fail by systems designed to extract wealth from people like us.

But you were never powerless.

The moment you recognize your agency—even in small ways, even while still struggling, even while still learning—that's the moment your victim story ends and your author story begins.

What Happens Next

You're going to make mistakes. You're going to slip back into victim mode. You're going to rationalize purchases you don't need because you believe they'll make you feel better.

That's not failure. That's being human.

The power is in the return.

Coming back to your pen. Coming back to your choice. Coming back to your story.

You are not a victim of your money story, younger me.

You are its author.

The story starts now. The plot is yours to write. The ending is in your hands.

What happens next?

That's up to you.

This work is hard. This work is ongoing. But this work is liberation.

With love and revolutionary hope,

Your Future Self

🌿

Ready to start authoring your own money story? Join me in the Money Skills Community where we face the music together and rewrite our financial narratives with courage and compassion.